The role of education in the Settler Canadian civilizing mission

In The Homing Place, I compare the culture and spacial organization of early New England meeting houses with Settler Canadian universities — seats of Western cultural rule and epistemological control where the lectern has replaced the pulpit and where populations are generally trained to revere transatlantic traditions and modes of thought.

When we look back to the origin of this new province, and trace it to a short period of only four years we find it rapidly arriving into use and consequence to Great Britain. The public Academies and private Schools establishing in that province with a view of Civilizing the Indian natives and thereby making them useful inhabitants, as well also for keeping their own youth from going into the neighbouring States of America for their education and imbibing the disloyal principles of that country.

A clear articulation of the role of these institutions in the consolidation of settler state power. Here’s to all the unlikely products of this system that was specifically designed to produce a citizenry that is unNative and unAmerican.